Fence Tip: Livestock Fence Design with Regards to Wildlife

Here I’m showing a barbed wire fence I was going around today and how you can better design your livestock fences to include the use of wildlife.

The 3 main animals that I see have an affect on livestock fences are Antelope, Deer, and Elk.

Antelope go under fences, deer go over, and Elk will go over, or through a fence if they get startled enough.

It’s sometimes easier and more cost effective in some situations to not fence out wildlife, but to design fences to allow wildlife to pass through (sometimes guys want to fence out wildlife in hay meadows, which makes sense, so there are exceptions).

Not making your fences super tall helps deer and elk not take out the top wires. Not making you bottom wires super close to the ground, helps antelope. And in high pressure places where wildlife likes to travel, you can coincide making wires looser, but still look like a barrier to cattle. That way wires are less likely to break.